Orange ethics board defers on Benton issue

Saturday

Mar 8, 2014 at 2:00 AM

GOSHEN — The Orange County Board of Ethics has declined to decide whether a county legislator violated ethics rules by taking a job with a county contractor and failing to disclose that he had done so, saying it would defer to an ongoing grand jury investigation.

BY CHRIS MCKENNA

GOSHEN — The Orange County Board of Ethics has declined to decide whether a county legislator violated ethics rules by taking a job with a county contractor and failing to disclose that he had done so, saying it would defer to an ongoing grand jury investigation.

The board was responding to a letter from a fellow legislator asserting that Leigh Benton, a Town of Newburgh Republican, violated four sections of the county ethics law by accepting a job with engineering firm Clark Patterson Lee and not telling his colleagues and the public he had done so.

Benton led the panel that recommended hiring Clark Patterson Lee last year as lead design firm for the planned Government Center overhaul, estimated to cost $67 million.

"The Board's determination to defer is based on considerations including, among other things, the District Attorney's primary jurisdiction, the Board's ordinary role as an advisory agency, and the risk of interfering with either the investigation or Mr. Benton's due process rights," Don Nichol, the board's attorney, wrote in a March 3 response to Legislator Mike Anagnostakis, also a Town of Newburgh Republican.

District Attorney David Hoovler confirmed this week that his office empaneled a grand jury on Feb. 28 to investigate the matter, and said the inquiry might take six weeks.

He declined to discuss the scope of the investigation, but has said previously that it would look into whether Benton's hiring posed a conflict of interest and if the county's ethics law should be strengthened.

Benton has said Clark Patterson Lee's CEO, Phil Clark, offered him a job in business development in November and that he saw no conflict in accepting, since the company already had its $4.7 million contract.

He started work in the company's Newburgh office in January, but resigned weeks later after news of his new job provoked a wave of criticism.

In a letter to the ethics board last month, Anagnostakis cited four ethics rules he thought Benton violated, including one that prohibits an official from accepting private employment that "creates a conflict or impairs the proper discharge of his official duties."

Benton didn't respond to a request for comment Friday.

Both the letter to the ethics board and Nichol's reply were distributed to all 21 county legislators, five county officials and attorneys and county Republican Chairwoman Courtney Canfield Greene.